1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a transport device for medicinal containers, which has a carrier member made from plastic that is provided with a plurality of openings for receiving the respective containers.
2. Prior Art
Medicinal containers, especially packing means for medically effective ingredients, such as ampoules, flasks, bottles, injection molded ampoules, glass cylinders, syringe bodies, filled syringes (finished syringes) made from glass or plastic and capsules are known and on the market.
These medicinal containers typically have a circular cross-section. However they can also have a polygonal cross-section.
These types of containers are usually first made in a glass and/or plastic processing factory and then transported to a pharmaceutical plant, in which they are filled. A series of processing steps, such as washing, sterilizing, packing, transporting, siliconizing, packaging, etc., are required both in the manufacture of the containers and also in their filling.
The handling, transporting and storage of these types of medicinal containers present special problems, such as those encountered in filling and unfilling syringes, syringe bodies, cylindrical ampoules. The essential reason is that these containers are mass-produced articles. In as much as they are mass-produced they are not prepared and handled individually. Instead they are handled only automatically or mechanically in orderly batches and/or magazined in so-called trays for economic reasons.
Many embodiments of suitable devices are known. DE 42 43 786 A1 discloses devices for transporting objects, especially tubes, e.g. cylinders for syringes, finished syringes and the like made from glass, plastic or the like. These devices have a circular circumferential carrier, which is provided with a plurality of outwardly opening receptacles for the individual objects, which are spaced from each other in succession along its outer edge. The individual objects can be held in or removed from the receptacles in the carrier. Each receptacle or receptacle pair comprises a clamping device, by means of which a respective object can be clamped or held therein.
EP 0 790 063 A1 discloses a frame or housing module with a plurality of clip-like clamping devices for holding syringe bodies vertically.
DE 40 21 836 C1 describes an apparatus for handling injector or syringe cylinders, which comprises a series of complex metal parts, such as supporting and locking or fixing plates. Both plates are arranged over each other with through-going openings in the respective plates for holding the injector or syringe cylinders aligned with each other.
A similar device is described in DE 36 13 489 C2.
The above-described transport device has grave disadvantages. It is not equally suitable without further modification for glass and plastic containers, since the preponderantly used metallic materials can easily lead to scratching plastic bodies, for one thing. For another, they are not suitable for one-time uses because of their high cost, their high weight and so forth and must be subjected to an arduous or expensive cleaning process prior to use in clean rooms. During the filling of finished syringe, which must be supplied in sterile form, the empty containers are introduced into the filling machine with the above-described transport device. For filling, i.e. for insertion of the filling tube into the syringe, and for subsequently inserting the charging tube in the syringe filled with fluid, it must be exactly aligned geometrically in a special step, since the housing is not reliably held in this alignment. This alignment is above all important in placing the injector piston in the syringe, since the charging tube preferably has a diameter, which is only slightly smaller than the syringe body.
A comb-like holder specially designed for a glass syringe, which is exclusively suitable for glass syringes with finger supports, is described in WO 94/14484. The syringes are also not centered in this holder, but are freely suspended from their finger supports.
Plastic perforated plates, in which the glass syringes, suspended on their finger supports, are held loosely, in the state of the art HYPAK(copyright) SCF(copyright) system are described in the above-mentioned EP 0 790 063 A1. A special centering process is required in this system.
An additional disadvantage of these holders for glass syringes freely suspended from their finger supports is that the alignment or arrangement of the syringes with respect to their finger supports changes during transport. The syringe bodies can vibrate very easily during transport because they are secured comparatively loosely. Thus they are easily contaminated. Furthermore contaminating particles are rubbed off the syringe bodies by the strong shaking or vibrating motions during transport and can be conveyed into the syringe bodies. Finally the completely filled holder has a certain deformation, which is disadvantageous for the filling process.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a transport device for medicinal containers of the above-described type, which can be made in a very simple manner and is universally useable, and which guarantees secure vibration-free and/or rattle-free holding and transport of the containers.
According to the invention the device for transporting medicinal containers includes a rigid plastic carrier plate provided with a plurality of openings for receiving the medicinal containers. These openings have respective open cross-sections adapted to corresponding cross-sections of the medicinal containers and the carrier plate has a predetermined thickness, so that the medicinal containers are clamped and held fixed and centered in the openings when received in them and so that no scratch marks are produced on the medicinal containers during transport.
The clamping of the containers in the openings is such that they do not vibrate and/or rattle during transport. No static charge is produced on the container during transport because of that aspect of the invention, i.e. the containers remain particle-free without the static charge and remain in the position in which they were inserted during transport. This is particularly advantageous for performing subsequent processing. Particularly no subsequent centering of the containers is required, for example for filling, so that the filling can occur in the transporting device.
In a preferred embodiment of the invention the carrier plate is made of a stiff plastic material and causes no scratch tracks on the container wall during insertion and withdrawal of the containers from the openings.
According to a preferred embodiment, the carrier plate is made from foamed plastic material, preferably foamed polypropylenes (PP) or foamed polyesters (PET). Carrier plates made in this way are very economical. The carrier plates can be recyclable through-away articles so that costly and arduous cleaning can be eliminated. Although the foamed carrier plate already has great rigidity, it can have reinforcing or stiffening elements or a rib structure when it has larger dimensions.
Preferably the carrier plate has at least one pore-free sealed surface. The carrier plate with the containers in it can be sterilized in an autoclave when it has a pore-free sealed surface.
In preferred embodiments of the device for transporting the medicinal containers the openings are arranged in rows in the carrier plate. In order to obtain a high packing density, adjacent rows are displaced or shifted with respect to each other by one half a distance between neighboring holes in one of the adjacent rows.
In order to provide especially reliable and secure clamping of the container in the carrier plate, a number of different preferred embodiments are conceivable.
Particularly secure seating of the containers in the carrier plate is obtained when the openings are through-going conical passages through the carrier plate and the through-going conical passages are tapered so that the through-going conical passages are narrowest on one side or the other of the carrier plate.
Alternatively respective collars projecting from the carrier plate are formed around corresponding openings. Parts of the containers, such as finger supports of syringes, can rest on the collars.
In another embodiment two radially inwardly extending annular constricting portions are arranged spaced axially from each other within each of the openings. These constricting portions engage and hold the containers inserted in the openings.
It is also conceivable to provide another embodiment in which the carrier plate is provided with three edge elements respectively at different heights within each of the openings in order to provide a three point support for the medicinal containers when the medicinal containers are received in the openings. This improves the self-centering action and prevents thermal isolation of part of the container, which is helpful for sterilization procedures.
The reliable fixing of the containers securely in the openings has the advantage that a static charge which will attract dirt and other particles does not develop on the containers due to relative motion between the containers and the carrier plate (nest).
Furthermore the reliable securing of the containers prevents damage or penetration of the sealing foil which closes the entire magazine, which can occur because of the unavoidable shaking or rattling during transportation. Thus desterilization is reliably prevented. In order to prevent this desterilization with the current device for transporting the medical containers an intervening foam or foil is used, which is superfluous now because of the structure of the carrier plate according to the invention.
The transport or carrier plate, in as much as it guarantees vibration-free and/or rattle-free transport of the containers, can be used in direct filling of the containers. In contrast the current practice is to lift the containers individual or in groups from the nest and to perform an arduous centering and alignment of the container prior to filling. These latter steps are advantageously eliminated when the carrier plate according to the invention is used. A considerably higher filling throughput can be obtained with the nest according to the invention in contrast to the state of the art.